Powerful CEOs and employee relations: evidence from corporate social responsibility indicators

In this paper, we investigate whether powerful CEOs who dominate the top management team exhibit positive or negative behavior towards their employees. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that CEO power as evidenced by high pay disparity between the CEO and top management, results in positive Employee Relations as measured by the KLD Statistics. We also find that CEO power affects the individual categories of Employee Involvement as well as Employee Health and Safety, indicating that pay disparity positively effects Employee Relations on a number of measures. However, the strong positive relationship is not found when the CEO holds the dual role of Chairman. In addition, neither measure tests positive for union relations, although high profitability, as measured by industry adjusted Return on Assets, appears to permit firms to have positive relations with employees on a number of different measures.     

Smoking and absenteeism

Studies of the causes of absence from work tend to indicate uniformly that smokers miss more work than non-smokers. Some estimates of this increased smoker absenteeism range as high as 32%, or about 81 million additional lost days of work per year in the US alone. Unfortunately these studies, in the main, employ only a simple means difference test as a statistical basis for their deductions, and hence are incapable of determining whether smokers miss more work because they smoke or for other reasons common to smokers as a group. In this study, we posit a native model of absenteeism and employ Tobit analysis to estimate its response to various determinants using data from the 1968 PSID. We than empoly a Blinder-type decomposition technique to attempt to determine the amount of absenteeism attributable directly or indirectly to smoking behaviour of workers. Our results suggest that smokers miss no more work than non-smokers because they smoke. Rather smokers tend to be younger, heavier drinkers, blue collar workers, etc., and these groups will miss more work regardless of whether or not they smoke.     

Explaining Individual and Task Differences in Consumer Attitudes toward Ambiguity

Consumers frequently face choices involving ambiguity, or uncertainty about the probabilities of the various possible outcomes. Past research has found that attitudes towards ambiguity vary across tasks. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest that such variation in consumer attitudes can be explained by examining the nature of the source of the uncertainty. It is suggested that consumers will have different attitudes depending upon whether the ambiguity is generated internally (by the consumer) or externally (by some outside source). Exploratory evidence and propositions for future research are presented. The results suggest that marketing strategies and de-biasing methods for ambiguous situations should consider the source of the ambiguity.     

The Short Sale Stigma

Despite a recent upturn, housing prices remain in flux in most cities nationwide. Lenders are still left dealing with a glut of distressed properties. They can choose to foreclose on the property or allow the owner/mortgagor to attempt to sell the property for less than the outstanding balance of the mortgage in a short sale agreement. The best way to clear the market of distressed properties is an important policy question. This is the first study to examine not only the price and time on market effect of being a short sale but also whether the short sale process itself creates a market stigma.     

Destructive and productive family relationships: A stewardship theory perspective

This study utilizes stewardship theory to explain why some family firms flourish while others are plagued by conflict. Our findings suggest that relationship conflict is negatively related and participative strategy process is positively related to family firm performance. In addition, we examine how altruism and control concentration affect relationship conflict and a participative strategy process. Altruism was found to significantly reduce relationship conflict and enhance a participative strategy process. However, control concentration was not significantly related to relationship conflict or a participative strategy process. The implications of our findings are discussed.